Benjamin's Affiliate Marketing Journal

[Benjamin_Maker]

Due to the graciousness of Markus, I have decided that I would chronicle my affiliate marketing journey.  Since I consider myself a complete newbie in this area, I feel that it might be helpful to others starting out to learn from any success or failure that I might have.  In the spirit of the giving season, I have decided to make this journey Open Source Affiliate Marketing.  My intent is to share as much detail as possible and not to leave anything that works or fails hidden.  I believe that there is enough in this world to go around and I don't need it all, just my share.  I hope you will all join in and contribute to this journey and the goal of increasing everyone's success.

I have always been intrigued with making money on the Internet, however, I never pursued an actual way to do so.  I am a computer programmer by trade, so I do have some skills that will be helpful.  However, most of my skills are windows based and it appears that Linux, Apache, and php are the tools of choice for most Affiliate marketers.  Thus, I feel that I am a newbie in that area as well.  Hence, I feel my journey literally began 2 weeks ago.

Here is a list of things I have done to educate myself over the last 2 weeks(This is not an attempt to market these products, I am only disclosing sources of information that have contributed to my knowledge base thus far) :

• Purchased Jeremy Palmer's High Performance Affiliate Marketing e-book.  This cost me $49, however I did receive $100 credit in Microsoft Adcenter.
• Listened to all of the podcasts from Jeremy Schoemaker (aka Shoemoney) on Webmasterradio.fm
• Listened to all of the podcasts from SEO Rockstars on Webmasterradio.fm
• Read SEOBlackhat blog
• Read JohnChow.com blog
• Read all posts on this forum (affiliate earners)
• Watched the Going Natural videos from Andy Jenkins & Brad Fallon

I have not read through the syndk8 forums yet, but it is on my list of things to do.  However, after spending the last 2 weeks trying to get a base foundation of knowledge, I feel that it is time to actually start my first affiliate marketing campaign.  One can read forever, but I feel that experience is the best teacher.  I have decided that the campaign will be a small scale PPC campaign on Microsoft Adcenter.  There are 2 reasons for this, however, I am always open to suggestions.  The first reason is that through my reading and learning over the last 2 weeks, there was a consensus that Microsoft Adcenter had a pretty good conversion ratio.  They don't have the traffic, but what traffic they have seems to have more buyers in it.  The second reason is that I have $100 credit, so I might as well spend someone else's money on my first test.

Campaign 1 Guidelines & Goals

• PPC Budget of $400
• Goal is 50% ROI

The question I have is whether to pick a product(s) first and then do keyword research or do the keyword research on multiple products and let that research make your decision on a product.  Because I don't know the answer to that question, I have decided to pick a product first.  Due to the time of year, I have decided that Weight Loss is on most people's minds and feel that will be my niche to start with.  I do fear that this will be a very competitive area, so that might present a problem for my first attempt.  However, I must move forward regardless of the outcome. 

Weight Loss Niche
Obviously, this is a large niche with many different products.  Thanks to Dink, I have signed up for SizzleCash and decided to try to market their CutRx product.  In the name of full disclosure, I have also signed up for AzoogleAds, Commission Junction, and Linkshare affiliate programs.  I intend to choose a few products from each of those programs as well to be included in my first test.

This is probably my first dilemma.  How many products do I attempt to sell at first?  What type of website do I make?

My thought at this point is to create a content/product review website.  I will focus my PPC ads on specific landing pages in the website for the products, however, I can also try to optimize the SEO and hope to eventually gain some organic traffic.  The downside to this is the learning curve on the SEO, however I can add to the website at my own pace while still relying on PPC for conversions.  I welcome any opinions on the best implementation.  My ultimate goal is to make at least 50% ROI on the PPC campaign, so I don't want to get too bogged down in the website SEO, etc.

Domain Names & Hosting
I have purchased a domain name through GoDaddy using a coupon code "OYH3" so that the cost was only $6.95.  I have purchased hosting through HostGator.  There are 2 things to note on the hosting.  First, because of kopking's post about being an affiliate with Bluehost and then signing up through your own affiliate link, I used that idea and signed up with Hostgator as an affiliate through Commission Junction.  They give you $100 for a new client signup.  Hopefully, they won't have a problem that the new client and the affiliate are the same.  We will see how that goes.  I signed up for their $9.95 monthly shared hosting with no contract.  However, I used a coupon code "jury" and got $9.94 off of the first month's fee.  So, if everything goes according to plan the hosting for the first year will cost .01 for the first month and $109.45 for the remaining 11 months.  That gives us a total cost of $109.46 for the year and hopefully an affiliate commission of $100, thus giving a net total of $9.46 for hosting for a year.  I will let everyone know if I get my commission from them.

Where am I now?
I have my niche selected as Weight Loss.  I have my first product selected thanks to Dink.  I have my domain name registered and my hosting account setup.  Now for the hard part.  I assume that my next step should be keyword research because those will affect my site design or at least some of the content.  I am open to any suggestions on the best way to do keyword research.  My thought at this point is probably pay to use Wordtracker for a day or maybe a week.  People tend to think it is a good tool and I like the fact I don't have to sign up for a monthly program even though it is more expensive to use it for a short time.

Things to do
Here is a list of things I have left to do.  If anyone has any suggestions on the most efficient or easiest way to accomplish them, I would be grateful.

• Research a few more products to sell that hopefully have high conversion ratios
• Research & implement best SEO practices (no clue on what really works here, I have heard a lot of different stuff but not sure which is accurate)
• Build the landing pages/website (not planning on anything too fancy at this point due to time constraints)
• Looking for a way to implement some type of A/B testing on the landing pages
• Looking for best way to implement analytics on site.  Leaning towards using Google Analytics and CrazyEgg
• Create Ad campaigns

That list makes me tired already.   I appreciate anyone that has actually read to this point and if you have any tips or suggestions, they are more than welcome.  I plan on updating my progress as it occurs and hopefully over the next few weeks I will have some tangible(and maybe profitable) results that I can post.

Here's wishing you the best in 2007!

Benjamin

[dink]

Oh Benjamin, a diet product for your first try?  You didn't see that sign that said "There be sharks in these waters"?  Just kidding.  The reason it is so competitive is because there is a lot of money to be made.  So, if you want to play with the big boys, you might as well start in their back yard.

Before I get too far into this, I want to make sure you understand something.  I may come off as a know it all or a guru of some sort.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I know what works for me and that's about all.

You said you signed up for SizzleCash.  Good for you.  You chose CutRx as you first product.  As good as any although it is targeted more toward the weightlifter types, it's still a good one.

Before you get too far ahead of yourself, click on the contact link in your welcome letter from SizzleCash.  The affiliate manager is your best tool in this business.  Chet has been in the affiliate field for at least ten years.  Both as an affiliate and as a manger.  Use him.  It's his job and he's good at it.  If you don't make money, he doesn't.

How many products do I attempt to sell at first?  What type of website do I make?

My suggestion is to concentrate on this one product for now.  The website?  Well for one product I just put up one page.  Devoted to the product, with no leaks. 

Looking for a way to implement some type of A/B testing on the landing pages

Don't get tied up in analytics just yet.  SizzleCash has a nifty feature you should use.  It's the subid appended to your aff link.  You can have unlimited subid's for any product.  So, domains are cheap and you have hosting lined up.  Make 5 or 6 or a dozen variations on your theme.  You can use an inexpensive tracking program to supplement the stats package at SizzleCash.

Looking for best way to implement analytics on site.  Leaning towards using Google Analytics and CrazyEgg

I can't advise you there.  I wouldn't use G. analytics on a bet.  I never liked the idea of someone having unlimited use of my clickstream data.  Don't know anything about CrazyEgg, but I'll bet it is similar.

Congrats on your start in the profitable and frustrating world of affiliate marketing.  I predict you will do well

For your next site(s) may I suggest the Hoodia product for diets/weightloss and SemenRx for a penis enhancement product.

Dink

[Benjamin_Maker]

Hi Dink,

I wanted to thank you for your recommendations.  I have a tendency to want to implement the grandiose plan, rather than remembering to "Keep It Simple Stupid".  Reading the forums and what other people have done gives me the false hope that I can implement this wonderful money making website that is SEO optimized and getting tremendous conversions on my first attempt.  My sincere thanks to you for keeping me grounded and on target.

I have sent an email to Chet as you suggested.  Hopefully I will hear back from him in the next few days.  I have also decided that your advice to focus on 1 product is a good idea.  This way I can concentrate my efforts on producing the best landing page(s) for conversion. 

The website?  Well for one product I just put up one page.  Devoted to the product, with no leaks.

I assume since I am using Microsoft Adcenter, that I do not have to worry about being penalized for having a 1 page website?  My understanding from my limited knowledge base gained over the last 2 weeks is that Google will penalize you for having just single page websites and that your PPC costs will be elevated to higher levels.  Is this something I will have to worry about in the future or am I completely wrong in my understanding of Google's policy?

So, domains are cheap and you have hosting lined up.  Make 5 or 6 or a dozen variations on your theme.  You can use an inexpensive tracking program to supplement the stats package at SizzleCash.

The other question I have is concerning the A/B testing suggestion you gave.  I am a little confused on the specific implementation, so please forgive my ignorance.  Are you suggesting that I register multiple domain names and have a different landing page for each domain, then create an ad campaign for each of the domains(tying in the subid in sizzlecash to the particular domain/campaign)?  That sounds like a reasonable solution.  My original thought was to see if it was possible to serve a different landing page in a round robin fashion to visitors to my 1 domain using some type of php code.  For example, have an index.php page that the ads point to, but the index.php page would have access to some counter that is updated everytime the page is requested.  Based on modding the counter by the number of landing pages, you could send the user the appropriate variant of the landing page.  I think your solution (if I understand it correctly) is a much more straightforward approach and maybe a better choice at this time for me for sure.  I just figured that someone probably had a php solution to A/B type testing.

Again, I thank you for your help.  I will try to implement your suggestions and get this ready for next week(to hopefully catch some of those New Year's Resolutions.)

Best Wishes,

Benjamin

[dink]

You're welcome Benjamin.  I'll try to help as I can.

I assume since I am using Microsoft Adcenter, that I do not have to worry about being penalized for having a 1 page website?

Truthfully, I don't know.  I've never used the M$ ppc option.  I'll say this tho.  Which ever ppc platform you use matters not how many pages you have.  The clicks will go to a landing page.

I haven't noticed much difference in the big three engines whether I have a one-pager or a 26k page site.  It's all about inbound links for your ranking.

Are you suggesting that I register multiple domain names and have a different landing page for each domain

Yes.  Except you should think of it not so much a different 'landing page' as a different site entirely.  Each one promoting the same product, but with different spin, images, header text, etc.  That way you can make changes to your layout and sales pitch with a laser touch.

Another benefit is that when you start your linking campaign, you may find yourself with 2, 3, or maybe a boatload of sites, all selling the same product, with different names, on the first page of MSN.  How cool would it be to have all ten top spots on a SE for a money making kw?

My original thought was to see if it was possible to serve a different landing page in a round robin fashion to visitors to my 1 domain using some type of php code.

Yes you can do that.  I've seen such a script.  Don't remember where tho...I'm not into deep analysis, I'd rather make ten sites and see which one(s) will swell my wallet.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Dink 

[Benjamin_Maker]

Dink,

That is great help.  Thank you for explaining it so that I could get my thick head around it.

Another benefit is that when you start your linking campaign, you may find yourself with 2, 3, or maybe a boatload of sites, all selling the same product, with different names, on the first page of MSN.  How cool would it be to have all ten top spots on a SE for a money making kw?

Wow!  I never looked at it that way.  I was worried about not paying $7 for a new domain name to keep costs down and never even considered the benefit of having multiple domain names all selling the same product.

Now on to keyword research.  Thanks for your evaluation of Wordze, I'm going to give it a try.

Best Wishes,

Benjamin

[dink]

I was worried about not paying $7 for a new domain name to keep costs down...

Domain names are cheap.  Even if you pay full price for a .com, it's for an entire year.  So, less than a buck a month.  Just don't go overboard on buying names, at least not yet.

While you are doing your keyword research, keep in mind that a keyword rich domain name is still worth having.  If you keep it within reason.  I wouldn't go with a name like...dietdietproductdietpillsorderdietpillsonline .com, but it might work 

Here is a link to a very good stats program.  Free too.  You can have as many domains tracked as you wish.  The free option only provides stats for the latest 100 visitors per domain.  They have a paid option for like ten bucks if you get big enough to need it.    .

Dink

[markus]

Hey Benjamin

Sounds like you're off to a good start, and with some good advice from dink.

Seeing how it sounds like you're relatively new to SEO, I'd suggest
reading   and   - as mentioned, it's about the links.

I was looking at your 'to do' list;
i.e.

- Research a few more products to sell that hopefully have high conversion ratios
Comment:
my suggestion is to work one particular niche - sounds like you've picked weight loss. Lots of complimentary stuff you can market. Videos/books (Amazon associate program), diets, etc

- Research & implement best SEO practices
Comment: see above about seobook / jimboykin

- Build the landing pages/website
Comment: dive right in. once ya have a template, create 10 pages and optimize for your primary keywords

- Looking for a way to implement some type of A/B testing on the landing pages
Comment: need you to elaborate

- Looking for best way to implement analytics on site
Comment: lots of free ones (and I agree not to use G's version - they have enough data as is)

- Create Ad campaigns
Question: For PPC? Banners?

Things for you to try - article submissions, blogging, become involved in relevant networks like weight loss support groups and use a link to your site in the footer of your forum profile

[Benjamin_Maker]

Journal Update
I wanted to post an update on my journey.  I have been working 12-14 hours a day since my last post trying to get the site up in time for the new year.  The reason I mention that is so that other newbies understand the time commitment it can take to get an affiliate site going.  However, I probably spent WAY too much time on keyword research.  I spent the bulk of last Friday & Saturday doing keyword research.  I thought I would outline what I have accomplished so far.

Keyword Research
In my learning about affiliate marketing & PPC campaigns, it has been emphasized that keyword research is critical to success.  You have to focus on the long tail keywords (3 & 4 word phrases) that have little competition but also are the phrases people use when they are interested in buying something versus just browsing.  Because this was my first attempt at doing keyword research, I think I went overboard.  I came up with about 1600 keywords related to weight loss.  The way that I discovered them was I first went to google's adwords keyword tool and looked at keyword popularity for weight loss.  The tool came back with the search volume (as a graph which is not real informative) and also the competition (again a graph) for that keyword.  It also listed various suggestions for other keywords.  My thoughts, which might be wrong, was to take all of the keywords I could find that had Zero or low competition and greater than 0 search volume.  I also took keywords that had both nothing showing on the graph for either the competition or search volume.  I figured that as long as it was relevant it couldn't hurt.

Once I exhausted Google's list by entering all of the appropriate keywords I could think of, I then used a tool called Good Keywords (the free version, they also have a paid version).  They have a tool that is a phrase builder, so I would enter in various phrases that I thought were appropriate and then it would list all of the combinations of those phrases.  I would then take all of those phrases and enter them into Google's keyword tool and if they came up with no competition I would keep them.

After I had my list of what I thought were low competition long tail keywords, I subscribed to Wordze based on Dink's recommendation.  I then entered the keywords into Wordze to get an idea of actual search traffic.  The problem I had was that most of the keywords showed 0 search volume.  Because Wordze states that they only capture 7-13% of the search traffic, I don't really know if the keywords truly have 0 traffic or not.  I decide that I will keep them all and see what happens.

Because I am not focusing on Organic search at the moment (but I hope to soon), I wasn't too concerned with Wordze's other features like Wordrank.  However, I do feel that tool will be useful in the future for me.


Website Construction
Once I had my keywords, it was time to build the website/landing page.  Based on Dink's recommendation of talking with Chet at Sizzlecash, I got the feedback that a mini-site seems to do well.  Therefore, that is what I built.  It is basically a 4 page site that includes the home page, a Why CutRx page, a privacy policy page, and a product guarantee page.  Chet said I could use any of the graphics, etc. from the CutRx site, so I decided to make it look like the CutRx site.  I just changed most of the wording but kept the layout and graphics the same.  There is absolutely no leakage on any of the pages.  The only links go to either another page in the site or to my affiliate link.  Every page on the site has the same layout with the same links.  Therefore, they can't leave the site without clicking my affiliate link to either buy the product or find out more information on the product.  The only way to leave is either the back button or close the browser.

I uploaded the site to my webhost and tested the affiliate links (I cloak the links using php pages) which worked and I felt good at that point.  However, now the real test would begin.

PPC Campaign
Now that I had my keywords and my website was operational, it was time to try to drive some traffic.  I decided to use both Google Adwords and MSN Adcenter and run a campaign for 1 week.  I am using my $100 credit in Adcenter and I am allotting $20/day in google.  So, the campaign will cost me $140 out of pocket assuming I get billed for $20 a day at google. 

This is where I have done the least research and it might bite me.  Currently I have my maximum bid on all keywords set to $1 in google.  I don't plan on leaving that, but I wanted to get some traffic and see what happens.  I have my max bid in Adcenter set to $2 on all keywords.  The crazy thing is Adcenter shows no statistics at all and I know that the ad is running because I have used MSN to search and saw my ad.  I don't know if Adcenter only updates their stats daily or what, but I think that is not good.  Maybe I am doing something wrong. 

Since I have 0 stats in Adcenter, I have no idea if I have spent any money yet.  However, with Google it is showing 902 impressions, 5 clicks, CTR% of .55, Avg. CPC $.84, Total Cost $4.20, Avg. Pos 5.3

Those are pretty miserable stats, although I noticed 1 keyword had almost half of the impressions and 0 clicks.  Since I felt that keyword probably wasn't the most targeted to the product, I went ahead and deleted it.

I have checked my Sizzlecash account and it is showing 0 sales, so apparently those 5 clicks didn't find what they were looking for. 

Based on these early statistics, I will need at least a 6% conversion ratio (if they only buy 1 bottle) to break even.  Not great numbers, but it is still early on.

What Next?
My plans are to work on the keywords and ads.  I want to create multiple ads that are more specific to subsets of the keywords.  I also want to create a few more mini-sites and see if I can gather more data.  I would also like to figure out how to start with the Organic SEO on this site and see if I can get some organic search results in a month or two.

Any suggestions or critiques are more than welcome.

Wishing you much success,

Benjamin

[Benjamin_Maker]

Hey Markus,

Thank you so much for your suggestions.  I really appreciate all of the help you and Dink have given.  I plan on digesting your suggestions and I will post some feedback.

One thing I did try today was I posted to Craig's List in their Diet forum.  I saw that they have a PR of 8 and that one time I was searching on a topic and the top 10 items in Google were all Craig's list posts.  I figured it can't hurt to start getting the name out.  The only problem is that you have to register to put in a url in your post.  However, I left off the   and it allowed me to post with no problem.  The only downside is that it won't get spidered, but hopefully some people will still see it.

All the best,

Benjamin

[markus]

A word to the wise - steer clear of anything remotely like spam on craig's list.
They're a bunch you don't want to make angry.

Use Yahoo's site explorer and check the inlinks on a competitor.
Gives you some ideas where to start.
(But don't just follow that or you'll always be a step behind)

In G, you can try "site:competitorpage.com" and you'll see some
authority links, or places you'll want to get links from.

A couple things to remember when building links;
- relevance (stay on topic)
- neighborhood (who else on the page is getting links? even if the page is relevant, consider the outbound links too)
- location (in the body beats the column or footer)
- use your keyword phrases (not your url)

[Benjamin_Maker]

Journal Update

I wanted to give a quick update on how my first affiliate marketing campaign is going. 

First Sale!
I got my first sale of CutRx today.  2 bottles were purchased.  The commission for that purchase is $27.50.  So that is a positive note.  But here is the downside.  It has cost me $40 in google and $80 in msn so far in my PPC spending.  On top of that, I found out why MSN wasn't showing any stats.  Apparently, their system has a problem and they are working on it.  They will let me know when it is fixed, but they were kind enough to tell me that I had spent $80 with them so far in 2 days.  Thankfully, I am using their money, although I feel that I basically wasted it.  And who knows if I will be able to get any of the stats on keywords, etc. when their system is restored.

Here are my miserable stats from Google adwords:

Clicks 50
Impr.  5,484
CTR    .91%
Avg. CPC  .80
Cost $40
Avg. Pos.  4.7

I do have one keyword that is responsible for 1/2 that spend amount.  It has received 25 clicks out of 1915 impressions.  The ctr is 1.30% and the only problem I have is that I don't know what keyword lead to my sale.  That would be nice information to have.  The particular expensive keyword has an avg position of 1.1, but I think it is too closely related to another product and people are clicking my ad thinking it is that product.

Anyway, I was hoping that I would be closer to breakeven, but I still feel that I am getting some good data that I can use to tweak things going forward.

The one thing that bothers me is that my highest CTR for any keyword so far is 16.66%.  There are 2 keywords at that level and then the next highest is 8.33% and they drop fast from there.  I'm not sure how to take those stats.  I guess it means that my ads aren't relevant or compelling enough for the user. 

I have a few ideas that I am going to try because I think that with a little effort I can turn this into a profitable site.  I may not make a ton on it, but as long as it's profitable I will be happy.

All the best,

Benjamin

[markus]

Something to look into...

 

 /wiki/The_Long_Tail

  /wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

You'll find it interesting and get your mindset on a new approach.
(Just go to last link if you don't want to read a lot )

[Benjamin_Maker]

Hey Markus,

Thank you for your continued tips.  I do believe that I need to create more ads and have them much more focused to the keywords.  Right now I am running just 1 ad for about 1600 keywords (which I think many would be considered long tail, especially since most have not received any impressions so far).  I plan on continuing my test for the 1 week and then tweaking at that point.

I read through the Wired article and I plan on looking at the other two this week.  There is SO MUCH information and knowledge that I feel I don't have, but Rome wasn't built in a day and I have to remind myself that it has only been a few weeks that I have even known about this side of the Internet world.

All the best,

Benjamin

[markus]

Ready to chase the long tail?
mistertypo.com will help you with misspellings
Your 1600 keyword list will multiply ten fold,
and the best part is the misspelling KW's are cheap cheap cheap.

Hey Markus,

Thank you for your continued tips.  I do believe that I need to create more ads and have them much more focused to the keywords.  Right now I am running just 1 ad for about 1600 keywords (which I think many would be considered long tail, especially since most have not received any impressions so far).  I plan on continuing my test for the 1 week and then tweaking at that point.

I read through the Wired article and I plan on looking at the other two this week.  There is SO MUCH information and knowledge that I feel I don't have, but Rome wasn't built in a day and I have to remind myself that it has only been a few weeks that I have even known about this side of the Internet world.

All the best,

Benjamin

[cdc]

Hi Benjamin,

You're a step ahead of me because I haven't really begun to push affiliate marketing yet (hoping to start later this month), but something you said jumped out at me:

Right now I am running just 1 ad for about 1600 keywords

I don't think this is a good strategy.

Someone with more experience please correct me if I'm wrong, but it would be very difficult for you to write that 1 ad so that it is relevant to all 1600 keywords.

A strategy that I've read about is to pick one phrase per ad group. So I know you're doing weight loss, right? Let's say you pick the phrase "burn off" so you go and create an ad group for that.

Then in that ad group you can have the keywords "burn off fat", "burn off calories", "burn off weight", "burn off fat pills", etc. Then in your ad make sure you use the words "Burn Off" which makes your ad stand out better because G will highlight those two words.

Another thing that all the gurus recommend is that you run two ads at the same time with only a small difference between the two. So your headline for one could be: "Burn Off Fat" and the other "Burn Off Calories" with everything else being the exact same. You let them run for a while (usually about 30 clicks or so) and see which ones performs better.

Then you get rid of the worse one, but make a new one that is slightly different than the "winning" ad (maybe change the capitalization of your URL or something).

Another tip: if some of your keywords are getting less than 1% CTR I would remove them and maybe think of writing a new ad for them in a different ad group. The price you pay is based on your ad's performance across the entire ad group, so you want to do everything possible to have ads that are getting clicked on >5% of the time.

I'm just stockpiling info right now, so all this is theory to me. I'm going to start putting it to the test soon.